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2. This is what the screen will look like. There are some controls and options on the left side – including a window where you can see what calls you’ve been invited to.

Click the VIDEO CALL icon.

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3. This screen will popup. The big box on the right is where you will give your session a name. ALL OF THE PARTICIPANTS need to know what name you give it.

If they use the same session name, then they’d join the call.

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4. After starting the video call, this is the screen you’ll see. At the top are some control icons – you can mute the microphone and mute the camera. The GEAR ICON lets you select which camera. microophone, and audio output [speakers] to use – if you have a choice [the built-in webcam versus and external one, for example].

One tech note: some of the laptops had muted microphones. They were muted in the Sound control panel.

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5. You can INVITE people to join the session here. Add there email addresses, then invite. You will probably have to ALLOW people from outside our “MDS Google sandbox” by clicking on the ALLOW button.

If you have your email up in a web browser window and someone invites you to videochat, then you should see a popup in your email window in the lower right corner. You can click a camera icon in that window to automatically join the videochat.

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6. Your camera shows up in the lower right corner. THEIR camera fills up the screen – obviously, there wan’t an active call when these shots were taken.

There’s the icon to hang up the call, highlighted in the picture.

QUICK NOTES:

Decide who will invite whom. It saves trouble.

Quit out of everything else you are running – including all other tabs in your browser. This also saves trouble.

Make sure you are using a WIRED network connection. It just works better.

The biggest problem I saw when using with a class is that many people talking at the same time was NOT a good idea. The audio kept breaking up and making what the other person said unintelligible.

The chat window can be useful when a call is in process.

The builtin webcam works OK, but merely OK. Ask Tech or the ARC about webcam availability.

Setup the connection BEFORE using it in class. Some connections took 10-15 minutes to get going.